On the availability of ISO in GB

[azhdar]

Hello maybe this isn't the right section so move it if necessary.

People that knows me know I'm a big defender of ISO. Even Azerty FR ISO but well that's not what I want to discuss today.

I've been a lot less active on the hobby since I pretty much reached my endgame. But lately 2 IC threads have kind of startled me:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.0
and this:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0

Before I continue, this IC threads I'm pointing are just examples toward the point I'm trying to make. I don't blame any of the IC starters.

First one : Sanctuary:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.450
On the latest pages we can see an argument ongoing because some kits were dropped and especially the ISO one.
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."

But I'll come back to it later.

Now one the second IC that interests me :

7V 75% Keyboard :
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Watching through all the pages there are 7 differents people asking for ISO support.

The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."

Ok moving on.


ISO is a much larger subject but for today let's assume only UK ISO for keycap compatibility.

On the base kit you're seeing there are about 60 caps outside of the "standard 104 ANSI layout" to accomodate for weird layouts such as 75% & 1800.

Reminder of the keys for UK ISO compatibility :
- ISO Enter ( ALso used for JIS)
- 1.25 Shift ( which can be used for layouts outside of ISO)
- 1u R3 key
- 1u R4 Key

4 keys total. When other layout require so much more keys, ISO can't get his 4 keys. And let's not talk about the keys that are included and god's know what use they have but well.

And remember I'm not talking about this IC in particular so don't throw me this post : https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.msg2776810#msg2776810 to the face that's not what I'm talking about.

I can understand that including more keys add to the price of the GB and can make or lose a GB.
Also I want to add one more thing. The kits included :

• HHKB
• 75%
• 1800

can all get combined with an hypothetical ISO kit.

Moving on back onto the subject of Customs keyboard and ISO support.

On some GB there's Winkeyless and Winkey top part. Yet have 4 more holes in a pcb is too much ?

On the plates, having more cutouts  is bad ?Doesn't look pretty ? Remember it's gonna be underneath your keycaps.
Well we can even have separated plates.
 

Ok so to finish this way too long message already.

I'm not saying ISO should be in every GB.
I'm not saying ISO is standard and the most used layout.

But you have to understand that the hobby is too ANSI-Centric.
To the point that a lot of people migrates towards ANSI because they can't get compatible keys for their country layout. Hell if I wanted brand new Azerty FR caps, there's been 2 GB in total in the span of 6 years.

It's NOT ANSI VS ISO and I can't accept flawed arguments against ISO support.
Let's work together so everyone can have a keyboard they cherrish.

Let's try to keep the arguments civil pls.

[Coumbaya]

Well said. That's the sad state of affairs right now in the keeb world.
Also Azerty ftw. )

[Myoth]

The Keycap sets

I do agree with the ISO compatibility problem in keysets, I use ISO sparsely, but I know where people who want ISO come from, when I was beginning in the hobby, I was using ISO-FR, and it was a pain in the **** to get keycaps for that layout, and it still is, I quickly swapped over to ISO-UK because it was ISO, and it had lots of keysets including it. I can understand why someone would not want International kits, I get it, everyone wants one, nobody gets one.

But come on, ISO-US is 4 keys, it's really not the end of the world, even more so when you have such weird layouts, for the sake of the argument, I'll also pick DCS Sanctuary as an exemple, if you look at the base kit, there are a few things that I really don't understand :

• a 1u R4 Enter key ? the only use I can see for that one would be on 96s, and splitting the numpad enter
• a 1u R2 + key ? I guess it's the same like the enter key I mentioned just above
• there is NO 1u R2 -, which is literally needed in a 1800 kit
• Alt Gr keys but no ISO ? scrap the Alt Gr and put ISO keys lol, unless you use ANSI INTL and then they are relevant, but I highly doubt that's what happened

There are far more stuff I could say about it but I'm lazy and I mainly want to talk about the Custom aspect of ISO. I hope you get the point I'm trying to make, there are keys that have far less use than ISO keys.

The Keyboards

On this point, I disagree, I am biased, like I said, I don't use ISO anymore, but I know people want ISO support, and I don't have anything against that, with that out of the way, I am against any sort of plate compatibility, here me out, crooked switches are one of the worse flaw a board can have, and if it's not crooked, there is pressure put on the switch and it will bind (on an ISO enter key). Fixed plates are the way to go.

If I ever make a keyboard in the future, it would have a FIXED tsangan ANSI plate, and a FIXED tsangan ISO plate. I somewhat agree with "some people might want their board to look good even without keycaps", especially on high boards, it just feels better to have a clean plate with no useless cutouts. (Which is one of the reasons I really don't like any TX boards, ever seen their bottom row ? no thanks.) Hence why I agree with people who might choose fixed plates over compatibility (i.e. keycult).

And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.

For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.

/2cents

[Sintpinty]

Hello maybe this isn't the right section so move it if necessary.

People that knows me know I'm a big defender of ISO. Even Azerty FR ISO but well that's not what I want to discuss today.

I've been a lot less active on the hobby since I pretty much reached my endgame. But lately 2 IC threads have kind of startled me:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.0
and this:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0

Before I continue, this IC threads I'm pointing are just examples toward the point I'm trying to make. I don't blame any of the IC starters.

First one : Sanctuary:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.450
On the latest pages we can see an argument ongoing because some kits were dropped and especially the ISO one.
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."

But I'll come back to it later.

Now one the second IC that interests me :

7V 75% Keyboard :
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Watching through all the pages there are 7 differents people asking for ISO support.

The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."

Ok moving on.


ISO is a much larger subject but for today let's assume only UK ISO for keycap compatibility.

Show Image

On the base kit you're seeing there are about 60 caps outside of the "standard 104 ANSI layout" to accomodate for weird layouts such as 75% & 1800.

Reminder of the keys for UK ISO compatibility :
- ISO Enter ( ALso used for JIS)
- 1.25 Shift ( which can be used for layouts outside of ISO)
- 1u R3 key
- 1u R4 Key

4 keys total. When other layout require so much more keys, ISO can't get his 4 keys. And let's not talk about the keys that are included and god's know what use they have but well.

And remember I'm not talking about this IC in particular so don't throw me this post : https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.msg2776810#msg2776810 to the face that's not what I'm talking about.

I can understand that including more keys add to the price of the GB and can make or lose a GB.
Also I want to add one more thing. The kits included :

• HHKB
• 75%
• 1800

can all get combined with an hypothetical ISO kit.

Moving on back onto the subject of Customs keyboard and ISO support.

On some GB there's Winkeyless and Winkey top part. Yet have 4 more holes in a pcb is too much ?

On the plates, having more cutouts  is bad ?Doesn't look pretty ? Remember it's gonna be underneath your keycaps.
Well we can even have separated plates.
 

Ok so to finish this way too long message already.

I'm not saying ISO should be in every GB.
I'm not saying ISO is standard and the most used layout.

But you have to understand that the hobby is too ANSI-Centric.
To the point that a lot of people migrates towards ANSI because they can't get compatible keys for their country layout. Hell if I wanted brand new Azerty FR caps, there's been 2 GB in total in the span of 6 years.

It's NOT ANSI VS ISO and I can't accept flawed arguments against ISO support.
Let's work together so everyone can have a keyboard they cherrish.

Let's try to keep the arguments civil pls.

Most of their customers don't use ISO. They assume their customers come from places where it is english.
If you're typing in weird accents, then it's probably going to have that weird n or going to that big enter.

Unless if you literally can't use ANSI, then i see no reason for iso.

What's the point if your enter takes up a large portion of the keyboard?

[azhdar]

The Keycap sets

I do agree with the ISO compatibility problem in keysets, I use ISO sparsely, but I know where people who want ISO come from, when I was beginning in the hobby, I was using ISO-FR, and it was a pain in the **** to get keycaps for that layout, and it still is, I quickly swapped over to ISO-UK because it was ISO, and it had lots of keysets including it. I can understand why someone would not want International kits, I get it, everyone wants one, nobody gets one.

But come on, ISO-US is 4 keys, it's really not the end of the world, even more so when you have such weird layouts, for the sake of the argument, I'll also pick DCS Sanctuary as an exemple, if you look at the base kit, there are a few things that I really don't understand :

• a 1u R4 Enter key ? the only use I can see for that one would be on 96s, and splitting the numpad enter
• a 1u R2 + key ? I guess it's the same like the enter key I mentioned just above
• there is NO 1u R2 -, which is literally needed in a 1800 kit
• Alt Gr keys but no ISO ? scrap the Alt Gr and put ISO keys lol, unless you use ANSI INTL and then they are relevant, but I highly doubt that's what happened

There are far more stuff I could say about it but I'm lazy and I mainly want to talk about the Custom aspect of ISO. I hope you get the point I'm trying to make, there are keys that have far less use than ISO keys.

The Keyboards

On this point, I disagree, I am biased, like I said, I don't use ISO anymore, but I know people want ISO support, and I don't have anything against that, with that out of the way, I am against any sort of plate compatibility, here me out, crooked switches are one of the worse flaw a board can have, and if it's not crooked, there is pressure put on the switch and it will bind (on an ISO enter key). Fixed plates are the way to go.

If I ever make a keyboard in the future, it would have a FIXED tsangan ANSI plate, and a FIXED tsangan ISO plate. I somewhat agree with "some people might want their board to look good even without keycaps", especially on high boards, it just feels better to have a clean plate with no useless cutouts. (Which is one of the reasons I really don't like any TX boards, ever seen their bottom row ? no thanks.) Hence why I agree with people who might choose fixed plates over compatibility (i.e. keycult).

And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.

For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.

/2cents

Well said. Thanks for your input.

Hello maybe this isn't the right section so move it if necessary.

People that knows me know I'm a big defender of ISO. Even Azerty FR ISO but well that's not what I want to discuss today.

I've been a lot less active on the hobby since I pretty much reached my endgame. But lately 2 IC threads have kind of startled me:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.0
and this:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0

Before I continue, this IC threads I'm pointing are just examples toward the point I'm trying to make. I don't blame any of the IC starters.

First one : Sanctuary:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.450
On the latest pages we can see an argument ongoing because some kits were dropped and especially the ISO one.
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."

But I'll come back to it later.

Now one the second IC that interests me :

7V 75% Keyboard :
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Watching through all the pages there are 7 differents people asking for ISO support.

The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."

Ok moving on.


ISO is a much larger subject but for today let's assume only UK ISO for keycap compatibility.

Show Image

On the base kit you're seeing there are about 60 caps outside of the "standard 104 ANSI layout" to accomodate for weird layouts such as 75% & 1800.

Reminder of the keys for UK ISO compatibility :
- ISO Enter ( ALso used for JIS)
- 1.25 Shift ( which can be used for layouts outside of ISO)
- 1u R3 key
- 1u R4 Key

4 keys total. When other layout require so much more keys, ISO can't get his 4 keys. And let's not talk about the keys that are included and god's know what use they have but well.

And remember I'm not talking about this IC in particular so don't throw me this post : https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.msg2776810#msg2776810 to the face that's not what I'm talking about.

I can understand that including more keys add to the price of the GB and can make or lose a GB.
Also I want to add one more thing. The kits included :

• HHKB
• 75%
• 1800

can all get combined with an hypothetical ISO kit.

Moving on back onto the subject of Customs keyboard and ISO support.

On some GB there's Winkeyless and Winkey top part. Yet have 4 more holes in a pcb is too much ?

On the plates, having more cutouts  is bad ?Doesn't look pretty ? Remember it's gonna be underneath your keycaps.
Well we can even have separated plates.
 

Ok so to finish this way too long message already.

I'm not saying ISO should be in every GB.
I'm not saying ISO is standard and the most used layout.

But you have to understand that the hobby is too ANSI-Centric.
To the point that a lot of people migrates towards ANSI because they can't get compatible keys for their country layout. Hell if I wanted brand new Azerty FR caps, there's been 2 GB in total in the span of 6 years.

It's NOT ANSI VS ISO and I can't accept flawed arguments against ISO support.
Let's work together so everyone can have a keyboard they cherrish.

Let's try to keep the arguments civil pls.

Most of their customers don't use ISO. They assume their customers come from places where it is english.
If you're typing in weird accents, then it's probably going to have that weird n or going to that big enter.

Unless if you literally can't use ANSI, then i see no reason for iso.

What's the point if your enter takes up a large portion of the keyboard?

pls make sense.

Enter may be larger to your eyes but we still have one more key on our keyboards  :cool:

[Sup]

Most of their customers don't use ISO. They assume their customers come from places where it is english.
If you're typing in weird accents, then it's probably going to have that weird n or going to that big enter.

Unless if you literally can't use ANSI, then i see no reason for iso.

What's the point if your enter takes up a large portion of the keyboard?

[qoute]
pls make sense.

Enter may be larger to your eyes but we still have one more key on our keyboards 

[/quote]

He doesn't make sense. He doesn't have any experience with the custom mechanical keyboard scene but still spurs information here from other posts/reddit as if he has experience with everything.

But still i agree there should be support for ISO. I don't see why a few extra keys would increase the price so drastically.  I see enough GMK/EPBT with ISO support in the base kit while still having a normal price. But yeah at the end of the day its the GB runners choice even though he misses a few extra buyers to reach MOQ 

[dgneo]

i like how the only azerty supporters here are french

not really sure the point of this thread, other than to ***** about lack of iso compatibility for a couple sets. if you have that big of a problem with it, take it up with the makers?

[azhdar]

i like how the only azerty supporters here are french

not really sure the point of this thread, other than to ***** about lack of iso compatibility for a couple sets. if you have that big of a problem with it, take it up with the makers?

Well azerty is a french layout so yeah, duh.

The makers don't want the conversation to derail on the IC thread, they ask to take it elsewhere.
So this is elsewhere.

[zekth]

i like how the only azerty supporters here are french

Why do all QWERTZ users are German?!

[MAR82]

i like how the only azerty supporters here are french

Show Image

Why do all QWERTZ users are German?!

All AZERTY users are French. But not all QWERTZ users are German.
If you're going to mock someone, try to get your info right so other people don't mock you...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ

(and some countries that speak French also use an AZERTY variant, so technically not only French use AZERTY)

[zekth]

A bit of a shortcut yes, but QWERTZ is based on germanic languages AFAIK

[funderburker]

I am all about ISO but am now contemplating if I want to commit to an ANSI board cause of compatibility reasons.

ISO users are most of Europeans and even if they don't have a country-specific ISO layout, most of the boards (and laptops for that matter) come in ISO. I for one have used ISO-DE and ISO-UK keycaps on boards because there is no ISO-LV so the characters aren't that important for me. Now I actually am planning to use ISO-US keycaps are I prefer the large LShift but absolutely love my \| key being closer and in the proper location.

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

In the end of the keyboards are tools and they need to be customizable not in terms of (just) looks but in terms of functionality primarily thus cutting out ISO users from GBs means making people choose looks over functionality and that's not right. It's like saying - we only make sneakers in X size and not in any other because there's not enough people with Y foot size to make it profitable. Like c'mon.

[fleeceman]

100% agree with this. The addition of like 4-6 additional keys will not change the price that much, so it's pretty pathetic to exclude so many people just to save a few dollars, especially when you are including caps for niche layouts anyway.

As an ISO user myself, I flat out refuse to compromise and use caps with the wrong legends when I am spending hundreds on keycaps.

It is a bad omen for the future of this community that so many new people don't really give a f*ck about anyone but themselves and their particular layout. Look at all the OG sets that included full ISO compatibility in the base set that had absolutely no issue hitting MOQ.

I've even seen ridiculous statements like "please drop ISO and numpad so I can afford 2 base kits pls".

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[Poesjuh]

Hmmm. I'm an ANSI user but gonna give my 2 cents anyway since a lot of my friends in this community actually use ISO. I actually tried ISO and have an AZERTY laptop at work (wrong order ) but my pinky can't reach the enter Anyway, enough intro.

With regards to keycap sets, I honestly see no reason not to include the 4 keys. Unless there is some kind of "GMK Base kit for $100" that we (the masses) don't know off and anything beyond that instantly raises the price with $10-20, adding 4 keys surely can't be that much more expensive. Adding 4% extra keys for perhaps 5% of the users (guessing here) doesn't look like a bad thing to me. Cutting the ISO keys just keeps ISO users from buying a keycap set which is a shame imho. Yes I know, not adding 40% kits does the same... But I hope we can agree iso and 40's don't fall in the same category. (Although, perhaps 40% users disagree with me on this.)

Talking about keyboards I do think that a cheese plate doesn't improve the sound and feel of the plate. I'm all for fixed layouts. If a GB runner chooses to only include ANSI, that's fine by me. Be the legend, give the files for ISO plates. Also be a legend and make the pcb support both ansi and iso, it really isn't that much more support that's needed.

It feels a bit like "the community", or at least the Western one, is slowly pushing a group within our community away and banishing them. No ISO keyboards, no ISO keycap sets. I can't agree on that.

tldr; I support adding 4 keys with keycap sets for ISO users. I also vote for open plate design and pcb that supports iso.

[fleeceman]

Most of their customers don't use ISO. They assume their customers come from places where it is english.
If you're typing in weird accents, then it's probably going to have that weird n or going to that big enter.

Unless if you literally can't use ANSI, then i see no reason for iso.

What's the point if your enter takes up a large portion of the keyboard?

The country where English was invented, ENGLAND in case you didn't know, uses ISO layout.

You must be trolling because no one is genuinely that thick.

[Prelim]

kudos for this thread and let's support ISO!

also, ansi+iso pcbs and plates are most needed on korean customs GB 

[boboking5]

Talking about keyboards I do think that a cheese plate doesn't improve the sound and feel of the plate. I'm all for fixed layouts. If a GB runner chooses to only include ANSI, that's fine by me. Be the legend, give the files for ISO plates. Also be a legend and make the pcb support both ansi and iso, it really isn't that much more support that's needed.

Couldn't agree more. With things like laserboost and other services popping up getting a new plate is easier than ever it just requires a plate file. As you says adding ISO support to a PCB is really not that much more work.

[Findecanor]

The issue with plates is stabilisers. There is a type of keyboard with plate which has PCB-mounted stabilisers, and those could support both ISO, ANSI, JIS and HHKB (Both JIS and HHKB has "split Backspace" and small right Shift, although the right Shift are in different places)

[dgneo]

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.

It's like saying - we only make sneakers in X size and not in any other because there's not enough people with Y foot size to make it profitable. Like c'mon.

Kinda, some shoe manufacturers definitely make less of larger/smaller sizes that aren't purchased as frequently. Making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.

[jamoz330]

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.

It's like saying - we only make sneakers in X size and not in any other because there's not enough people with Y foot size to make it profitable. Like c'mon.

Kinda, some shoe manufacturers definitely make less of larger/smaller sizes that aren't purchased as frequently. Making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.

So completely get rid of functionality for one group of people in order to add extra’s to another group of people?

[Oblotzky]

[Wilba]

The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."

You're quoting someone else, not me. I don't refuse to do ISO. Custom keyboard designers commission me for a PCB, and it's their choice what they want. If they want a single plate design that is tailored to their preferences (and the majority of their potential customers), and a PCB to match, then that's their choice. LeandreN wanted ISO support on PCBs for future Mekanisk group buys. No problem.

https://mekanisk.co/collections/group-buys/products/unannounced-product

And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.

For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.

You're missing the point here. I can put ISO on a PCB, it's not particularly hard, I'm not "lazy", I designed Zeal60 which had ANSI and ISO and in-switch RGB, and I did it just to prove one could do both, some things are sub-optimal but it works. It was designed to fit in 60% tray cases, not as part of a custom keyboard "kit" (case + PCB), so it makes sense.

The arms race to put as many layouts as possible on a PCB has led to the "swiss cheese". Now, people who don't want "swiss cheese" create a demand for "cleaner" PCBs, single-layout or minimal layout PCBs, the custom case designers choose this, and I make it. Other case designers favour compatibility and choose to add more layouts on the PCB and/or plates. That's their choice, too. There are no right or wrong answers, just choices and diversity.

[dgneo]

Show Image

love it

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.

It's like saying - we only make sneakers in X size and not in any other because there's not enough people with Y foot size to make it profitable. Like c'mon.

Kinda, some shoe manufacturers definitely make less of larger/smaller sizes that aren't purchased as frequently. Making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.

So completely get rid of functionality for one group of people in order to add extra’s to another group of people?

As I said in my post, making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.

From a financial standpoint, ANSI users supporting a groupbuy with awesome novelties will vastly outweigh the few folks who want ISO compatibility. And with price breaks for GBs happening the more people purchase, not to mention some GBs not even launching without X amounts of orders, are you really surprised that makers would rather push ANSI + Novelties than ISO?

[the pokemon kid]

I will throw my two cents into the conversation.

For me, if a Keyset or Keyboard doesn't have ISO then its a non purchase for me entirely. No matter how good the board is or pretty the keyset is, its a no go. I was hyped with funds ready for the U80-A however when I saw it was ANSI only, I bought something else.

However I am more than happy to do some of the work in getting ISO for the boards. I am currently running a Groupbuy for the ISO users for the Satisfaction75 as UPAS is only including an ANSI Plate (PCB supports ISO). This is a 75 euro add on, however to me this is more than worth it.

With regards to keycaps, I am more than happy to pay extra for an ISO UK addon set. However I have always wondered how much extra it actually cost to put ISO support in the base set?

[megaforce]

no iso no buy!!!!!1111

GGGRRRRRRR!!!!

[Findecanor]

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.

Here in a ISO-land, I see people adopting ANSI because of key sets being only in ANSI / ISO keysets requiring additional sets at best.

When a set requires additional ISO kit + additional NORDE kit + international shipping, then the price for a ISO user could easily become twice that as for an ANSI customer.
Many ISO users just avoid these GBs altogether, because it is often just not worth it.

In other words, you should infer too much from the fact that ANSI sets are selling more.

[Sifo]

When a set requires additional ISO kit + additional NORDE kit + international shipping, then the price for a ISO user could easily become twice that as for an ANSI customer.
Many ISO users just avoid these GBs altogether, because it is often just not worth it.

which means that GB runners are gonna have even less of a reason to include ISO

the cycle continues!

[Poesjuh]

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.

You’re assuming here. What research has been done to show that ansi users want novelties?

Not trying to offend here, but making statements that have no ground to them makes no sense. Perhaps ansi users want novelties. Perhaps not? GMK Minimal >800 kits sold without novelties. But apparently ansi users want novelties?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dgneo]

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.

You’re assuming here. What research has been done to show that ansi users want novelties?

Not trying to offend here, but making statements that have no ground to them makes no sense. Perhaps ansi users want novelties. Perhaps not? GMK Minimal >800 kits sold without novelties. But apparently ansi users want novelties?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

First off it's just that - an opinion - which I stated at the beginning of the post.

I expanded a little bit more here:

"As I said in my post, making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.

From a financial standpoint, ANSI users supporting a groupbuy with awesome novelties will vastly outweigh the few folks who want ISO compatibility. And with price breaks for GBs happening the more people purchase, not to mention some GBs not even launching without X amounts of orders, are you really surprised that makers would rather push ANSI + Novelties than ISO?"

[nappis]

I'm former ISO user converted to ANSI. But I still think all sets should include at least minimum ISO support (ISO UK I guess) in base kit. I'm Finnish so I don't care if all sets support out of the box Swedish/Finnish ISO but ISO enter plus two keys next to right shift and and next to ISO enter should be included in every kit!

I mean some very niche layout users cry for their niche layout keys to be included in base kits. But if your base set doesn't have ISO support then your excluding a continent of users. It does not make any sense.

[depletedvespene]

And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."

Allow ME, then, to pound on this for a minute...

Most of the world uses ISO Enter keyboards, not ANSI. Whoever states the inverse is just flat out wrong. Step away from mechanical keyboards for a minute, and go look what regular keyboards used by non-enthusiasts look like, and you'll be hard-pressed to find ANSI keyboards on countries where the standard (as dictated by the language) is ISO... and now look up the countries that use ISO and the ones using ISO (and then sum up their respective populations).

So, yeah, it may be the case now that mech-enthusiasts use more ANSI than ISO, but that is definitely not the case when looking outside our own niche. And if this niche wants to grow, it can't do so by alienating the rest of the universe.


So why no support for ISO in the first place? I think it's just myopia.


Now, allow me to make an argument that I haven't seen issued so far (and which kinda surprises me that is the case). NO ONE will bat an eye at the amount of repetition in the nav-cluster keys. I'll put up GMK Nines as an example because this one is actually modest in this regard - it has:

- 1 Insert key (R1)
- 2 Delete keys (R1, R2)
- 1 Home key (R1)
- 2 Page Up keys (R1 and R2)
- 3 Page Down keys (R1, R2, R3)
- 3 End keys (R1, R2, R4)

You guys may name other kits that have even more copies of those six keys (five, actually - I've yet to see a kit with more than one Home key).

If anyone asks, everyone will agree that this is necessary to support as many physical layouts as possible (fullsize/TKL, 75%/65%, 60%, 1800, etc.).

Same goes for the Shift keys, where it's pretty much the standard, for the same reason, to have four keys just for the right Shift (2.75U, 2.25U, 1.75U and 2.00U, besides the 2.25U ANSI left Shift key).


Yet... adding a 1.25U Shift key and a second Enter key (ISO) seems to be tantamount to sacrilege for some. I'll reiterate: it's myopia.


The discussion always goes over how much of an international support should there be and gets futher complicated by NORDE, NORDEUK, lack of sales, some stroppy git claiming for support for something called "LAPTES", etcetera.



I think, if you ask me, that the compromise solution should be simple enough. Support US ISO in the base kit. How?

1) The base kit should be US ANSI, as it has always been, with all the repetition of nav keys and Shift and accented Esc and Enter keys and whatnot, albeit...

2) The base kit should also contain EXACTLY FOUR more keys: ISO left Shift (1.25U), ISO Enter, R3 \| key, R4 \| key.

3) An "accent" ISO Enter may or may not be added.

4) An R4 <> key may or may not be added, to evoke the terminal keyboards of old.

That's it. A simple enough compromise, that adds full support for 50% of ALL physical layouts out there in the world (TKL ANSI / TKL ISO, 60% ANSI / 60% ISO, etcetera). With as little as four keys.


Internationalization kits should be then added if feasible, with ONLY the necessary 1U alphas, plus one, two or three AltGr keys (as deemed necessary). I won't get into whether splitting NORDEUK into two or not is necessary, or adding LAPTES or BEFRIT, as that is another issue best talked about separately.


IMNAAHO. YMMV.


EDIT: typo.

[azhdar]

Thanks to everyone who's keeping the conversation going.
The arguments are interesting.
Trolls well ... w/e.

I want to highlight one point one more time:

The argument is about "75% support  is 100 more buyers whilst ISO support is 25 more , ISO don't make the bank " <== pretty much no ?
The thing everyone seems to forget is that 75% support, 1800 support, ... aren't  ANSI specific.
But if an ISO user wants a 75% or 1800 board he'll need both those kits. He'll have a reason to buy the set in the first place.
so maybe that 100+25 turns into a bigger number if the pricing is correct. Don't you think ?

[Myoth]

And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.

For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.

You're missing the point here. I can put ISO on a PCB, it's not particularly hard, I'm not "lazy", I designed Zeal60 which had ANSI and ISO and in-switch RGB, and I did it just to prove one could do both, some things are sub-optimal but it works. It was designed to fit in 60% tray cases, not as part of a custom keyboard "kit" (case + PCB), so it makes sense.

The arms race to put as many layouts as possible on a PCB has led to the "swiss cheese". Now, people who don't want "swiss cheese" create a demand for "cleaner" PCBs, single-layout or minimal layout PCBs, the custom case designers choose this, and I make it. Other case designers favour compatibility and choose to add more layouts on the PCB and/or plates. That's their choice, too. There are no right or wrong answers, just choices and diversity.

I don't think ISO is the biggest problem on many PCBs, while I do agree with what you say, for the sake of the argument, I can't really play devil's advocate. Else everything is subjective and there isn't any argument. Maybe lazy was too much of a buzzword, but come on, I HIGHLY doubt 8 pads are the end of the world. Clean PCBs and are nice, and I respect it, but I don't think adding ISO support dirties them or whatever, and if I were to make PCBs, ISO + tsangan would be the least they would be, on any of them. But I don't make any. So eh ?

[Acereconkeys]

And well ... the pcb argument .... the pcb problem is a dumb one brought by lazy pcb makers, not going to lie lol. The "swiss cheese effect" for the ISO keys, but they're fine with having 10000000 bottom rows ? miss me with that ****, if PCB makers really cared about the "swiss cheese effect", we'd only have tsangan and poker supported, for a TKL at least.

For the board mentioned, I can see effort has been put to make the cleanest PCB possible, but at the same time, I don't think putting ISO would have hurt the thing.

You're missing the point here. I can put ISO on a PCB, it's not particularly hard, I'm not "lazy", I designed Zeal60 which had ANSI and ISO and in-switch RGB, and I did it just to prove one could do both, some things are sub-optimal but it works. It was designed to fit in 60% tray cases, not as part of a custom keyboard "kit" (case + PCB), so it makes sense.

The arms race to put as many layouts as possible on a PCB has led to the "swiss cheese". Now, people who don't want "swiss cheese" create a demand for "cleaner" PCBs, single-layout or minimal layout PCBs, the custom case designers choose this, and I make it. Other case designers favour compatibility and choose to add more layouts on the PCB and/or plates. That's their choice, too. There are no right or wrong answers, just choices and diversity.

I don't think ISO is the biggest problem on many PCBs, while I do agree with what you say, for the sake of the argument, I can't really play devil's advocate. Else everything is subjective and there isn't any argument. Maybe lazy was too much of a buzzword, but come on, I HIGHLY doubt 8 pads are the end of the world. Clean PCBs and are nice, and I respect it, but I don't think adding ISO support dirties them or whatever, and if I were to make PCBs, ISO + tsangan would be the least they would be, on any of them. But I don't make any. So eh ?

The thing is that what you feel doesn't matter. When someone designs a custom keyboard they have a choice to make, design wise. The choice to remove iso compatibility obviously disappoints people who like iso, but most people who prefer ansi prefer to have their expensive high end customs not have cheese pcb/plate. The beauty of this hobby is you absolutely have that freedom. Make your own boards, or support the designers who add iso compatibility to their projects even if they don't need to.

Interesting discussion though about Iso. Personally, I think it's an unfortunate situation not sure what's to be done about it. I empathize with the frustration of not being able to use the keysets you're interested in on the boards you buy. I recognize that's unfortunate for a hobby designed around making the perfect board for yourself. On the other hand though 100% of these arguments proposed here can work for any odd layout. I'm making a keyboard with 2x r3 1.25u keys. If that gets popular can I start demanding those? It's only 2 keys! What about the high amount of 40s users, why can't they demand we include 1.25u r3 tab key and a 1.75u r3 enter key in base kits. I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.

[funderburker]

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.

You’re assuming here. What research has been done to show that ansi users want novelties?

Not trying to offend here, but making statements that have no ground to them makes no sense. Perhaps ansi users want novelties. Perhaps not? GMK Minimal >800 kits sold without novelties. But apparently ansi users want novelties?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

First off it's just that - an opinion - which I stated at the beginning of the post.

I expanded a little bit more here:

"As I said in my post, making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.

From a financial standpoint, ANSI users supporting a groupbuy with awesome novelties will vastly outweigh the few folks who want ISO compatibility. And with price breaks for GBs happening the more people purchase, not to mention some GBs not even launching without X amounts of orders, are you really surprised that makers would rather push ANSI + Novelties than ISO?"

Poesjuh, let's keep this discussion a discussion.

Not all keysets absolutely need them imo and there's not real reason to INCLUDE them in a base kit (not all GBs do that but some does)

I think this whole ISO exclusion started because of all the gazillion GMK ICs and GBs that are a way of our community growing bigger and starting to just churn out GMK keysets like farts after a lunch in nasty taco place. It's a ****ing mess what is going on with all these GMK ICs and people wanting everything but not being able to afford everything they want. There's a new shiny keyset that may or may not be "THE ONE" for some build they apparently have in mind. This is a way of our hobby growing ever so bigger, the options expanding and GB runners and shops understanding the massive commercial potential that is catering to the masses.

Just my opinion. I too would/will join some GMK GBs but it's just food for thought - there's an audience that WOULD BE willing to join but their not catered and it's a shame because it's not people that want some ****ing novelties or weird layouts but a real population that want to use their tools.

P.S. I started writing this way back so I left out a few posts after the quoted ones.
P.P.S. Think about numbers - if ISO people don't get in a GB, the runner is missing out on like $120-$200 on each person. But if an ANSI person has to pay $20 more for a few keycaps that aren't gonna be used - let's cater to the $20 discount and not all that more ISO people pays?

[Acereconkeys]

I understand GH and a large portion of the GB participants are in favour of ANSI but for such a small change (4 keycaps) there is absolutely no reason to cut it out in favour of some weird novelty keys (is making molds for new novelty keys cheaper than to make default ISO keycaps?!?).

IMO the reason to cut ISO out in favor of novelty keys is simple - ANSI outweighs ISO, ANSI users want novelty keys.

You’re assuming here. What research has been done to show that ansi users want novelties?

Not trying to offend here, but making statements that have no ground to them makes no sense. Perhaps ansi users want novelties. Perhaps not? GMK Minimal >800 kits sold without novelties. But apparently ansi users want novelties?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

First off it's just that - an opinion - which I stated at the beginning of the post.

I expanded a little bit more here:

"As I said in my post, making ISO compatibility an add-on set is probably the best option.

From a financial standpoint, ANSI users supporting a groupbuy with awesome novelties will vastly outweigh the few folks who want ISO compatibility. And with price breaks for GBs happening the more people purchase, not to mention some GBs not even launching without X amounts of orders, are you really surprised that makers would rather push ANSI + Novelties than ISO?"

Poesjuh, let's keep this discussion a discussion.

Not all keysets absolutely need them imo and there's not real reason to INCLUDE them in a base kit (not all GBs do that but some does)

I think this whole ISO exclusion started because of all the gazillion GMK ICs and GBs that are a way of our community growing bigger and starting to just churn out GMK keysets like farts after a lunch in nasty taco place. It's a ****ing mess what is going on with all these GMK ICs and people wanting everything but not being able to afford everything they want. There's a new shiny keyset that may or may not be "THE ONE" for some build they apparently have in mind. This is a way of our hobby growing ever so bigger, the options expanding and GB runners and shops understanding the massive commercial potential that is catering to the masses.

Just my opinion. I too would/will join some GMK GBs but it's just food for thought - there's an audience that WOULD BE willing to join but their not catered and it's a shame because it's not people that want some ****ing novelties or weird layouts but a real population that want to use their tools.

I agree about the reason for ISO exclusion Funder. The more sets there are, the more they have to compete with each other and therefore the more they're going to slim and slim and slim their base kits to try and get that cheapest kit price. We've even seen sets go as far as removing the numpad from the base kit.

The only point about your reply that I don't personally agree is what makes Iso any different. I think it's a big stretch to think that the buying power of the Iso support group is somehow bigger than the buying power of other support groups. A lot of people really like novelties or other unsusual layouts and they might not want to join a GB that doesn't fill their board too, what's the difference?

[depletedvespene]

………
 I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.

And it's going to remain a minority if ISO users are kept being alienated by this issue, especially if OTHER small minorities are being served their needs in what today is considered the "proper minimal standard" for a keycap set (the 2.0U Shift key being the most obvious example of this), and some more keys getting added to the base kit as well without fuss (R2 Esc, R2 1.0 Tab), all the while an important key (ISO Enter) is treated like the plague.

Do remember that mech enthusiasm is not a hobby with a more or less fixed population - it's been growing for a few years already, to the point that it's becoming difficult for keycap set GBs to fail (a common occurrence even in 2017). At some point, the idea of ISO users being a "small minority" will become not just wrong, but laughable.

So, just as a non-controversial compromise exists for, say, the 1800 layout (with its R1 Del, End and Page Down keys), which is indeed used by a minority, why can't the same attitude exist for all the "ISO layouts" (be them full-size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 65&, 60%, etc.)?


And that's not getting into JIS - it reuses ISO left Shift and ISO Enter, adds a couple alphas, one R1 1U Backspace (which, it must be noted, already exists in plenty of "ANSI ONLY WE HATE ISO!" kits), and the bottom row keys. A small "JIS kit" could well be added, to add on to the base kit, which should support ISO and ANSI, plus the ANSISO and ISANSI hybrids out of the box.

We can all get the best of both worlds. We actually do, in the non-controversial compromises that already exist. Why not agree on this one, too?

[Acereconkeys]

………
 I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.

And it's going to remain a minority if ISO users are kept being alienated by this issue, especially if OTHER small minorities are being served their needs in what today is considered the "proper minimal standard" for a keycap set (the 2.0U Shift key being the most obvious example of this), and some more keys getting added to the base kit as well without fuss (R2 Esc, R2 1.0 Tab), all the while an important key (ISO Enter) is treated like the plague.

Do remember that mech enthusiasm is not a hobby with a more or less fixed population - it's been growing for a few years already, to the point that it's becoming difficult for keycap set GBs to fail (a common occurrence even in 2017). At some point, the idea of ISO users being a "small minority" will become not just wrong, but laughable.

So, just as a non-controversial compromise exists for, say, the 1800 layout (with its R1 Del, End and Page Down keys), which is indeed used by a minority, why can't the same attitude exist for all the "ISO layouts" (be them full-size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 65&, 60%, etc.)?


And that's not getting into JIS - it reuses ISO left Shift and ISO Enter, adds a couple alphas, one R1 1U Backspace (which, it must be noted, already exists in plenty of "ANSI ONLY WE HATE ISO!" kits), and the bottom row keys. A small "JIS kit" could well be added, to add on to the base kit, which should support ISO and ANSI, plus the ANSISO and ISANSI hybrids out of the box.

We can all get the best of both worlds. We actually do, in the non-controversial compromises that already exist. Why not agree on this one, too?

Sort of unintentionally on your end I imagine, but I agree with you about the 2u shift being a really odd inclusion versus iso. In my opinion the next compatibility added after though should be 40s not iso. I believe more people are interested in 40s than iso.

To sort of spawn a new discussion the only thing that matters at all is, right now, what's the current distribution of boards for the people who buy custom keysets.

Imo, it goes as follows: 65, TKL (including tsangan), 60, 75, 1800, 40s, iso, full size, 60 with arrows

[funderburker]

………
 I understand it's annoying but regardless of whatever percentage of the globe supports ISO, it's absolutely a small minority in custom mechanical keyboards, period.

And it's going to remain a minority if ISO users are kept being alienated by this issue, especially if OTHER small minorities are being served their needs in what today is considered the "proper minimal standard" for a keycap set (the 2.0U Shift key being the most obvious example of this), and some more keys getting added to the base kit as well without fuss (R2 Esc, R2 1.0 Tab), all the while an important key (ISO Enter) is treated like the plague.

Do remember that mech enthusiasm is not a hobby with a more or less fixed population - it's been growing for a few years already, to the point that it's becoming difficult for keycap set GBs to fail (a common occurrence even in 2017). At some point, the idea of ISO users being a "small minority" will become not just wrong, but laughable.

So, just as a non-controversial compromise exists for, say, the 1800 layout (with its R1 Del, End and Page Down keys), which is indeed used by a minority, why can't the same attitude exist for all the "ISO layouts" (be them full-size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 65&, 60%, etc.)?


And that's not getting into JIS - it reuses ISO left Shift and ISO Enter, adds a couple alphas, one R1 1U Backspace (which, it must be noted, already exists in plenty of "ANSI ONLY WE HATE ISO!" kits), and the bottom row keys. A small "JIS kit" could well be added, to add on to the base kit, which should support ISO and ANSI, plus the ANSISO and ISANSI hybrids out of the box.

We can all get the best of both worlds. We actually do, in the non-controversial compromises that already exist. Why not agree on this one, too?

Sort of unintentionally on your end I imagine, but I agree with you about the 2u shift being a really odd inclusion versus iso. In my opinion the next compatibility added after though should be 40s not iso. I believe more people are interested in 40s than iso.

To sort of spawn a new discussion the only thing that matters at all is, right now, what's the current distribution of boards for the people who buy custom keysets.

Imo, it goes as follows: 65, TKL (including tsangan), 60, 75, 1800, 40s, iso, full size, 60 with arrows

Just wanted to say your list of distribution while valid shows that first 5 board types in your list are all ISO compatible so that means it can cover a lot of ISO use cases. Even though I like seeing 40% kits in GBs as I do own a smaller form factor board, I'd prefer ISO Enter and \| (at least!) on a 60%+ form factor any day.

[Acereconkeys]

………
 ...

...

Sort of unintentionally on your end I imagine, but I agree with you about the 2u shift being a really odd inclusion versus iso. In my opinion the next compatibility added after though should be 40s not iso. I believe more people are interested in 40s than iso.

To sort of spawn a new discussion the only thing that matters at all is, right now, what's the current distribution of boards for the people who buy custom keysets.

Imo, it goes as follows: 65, TKL (including tsangan), 60, 75, 1800, 40s, iso, full size, 60 with arrows

Just wanted to say your list of distribution while valid shows that first 5 board types in your list are all ISO compatible so that means it can cover a lot of ISO use cases. Even though I like seeing 40% kits in GBs as I do own a smaller form factor board, I'd prefer ISO Enter and \| (at least!) on a 60%+ form factor any day.

While I agree and understand what you're saying. My tier list included all keyboards with iso in the iso group. I think that all ISO users, 60, 75, 1800, etc, combined still do not add up to the number of 40s/1800s users, when considering only the group of people who buy custom keycap sets.

[depletedvespene]

……
Just wanted to say your list of distribution while valid shows that first 5 board types in your list are all ISO compatible so that means it can cover a lot of ISO use cases. Even though I like seeing 40% kits in GBs as I do own a smaller form factor board, I'd prefer ISO Enter and \| (at least!) on a 60%+ form factor any day.

I think that part of the reason for this treatment of "ISO" is that "ISO" is thought of by some as if it were one distinct physical layout out of several, while it actually is a set of two variants (for left Shift and Enter/slash) for each of those several physical layouts. Instead of "full size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 60%, 40%, ISO", the list of physical layouts is actually "full size (ANSI and ISO), TKL (ANSI and ISO), 1800 (ANSI and ISO), 75% (ANSI and ISO), 60% (ANSI and ISO), 40% (ANSI and ISO)".

Just imagine if stepped and non-stepped Caps Lock keys were treated as different physical layouts instead of a variant in the same physical layout.

[Acereconkeys]

……
Just wanted to say your list of distribution while valid shows that first 5 board types in your list are all ISO compatible so that means it can cover a lot of ISO use cases. Even though I like seeing 40% kits in GBs as I do own a smaller form factor board, I'd prefer ISO Enter and \| (at least!) on a 60%+ form factor any day.

I think that part of the reason for this treatment of "ISO" is that "ISO" is thought of by some as if it were one distinct physical layout out of several, while it actually is a set of two variants (for left Shift and Enter/slash) for each of those several physical layouts. Instead of "full size, TKL, 1800, 75%, 60%, 40%, ISO", the list of physical layouts is actually "full size (ANSI and ISO), TKL (ANSI and ISO), 1800 (ANSI and ISO), 75% (ANSI and ISO), 60% (ANSI and ISO), 40% (ANSI and ISO)".

Just imagine if stepped and non-stepped Caps Lock keys were treated as different physical layouts instead of a variant in the same physical layout.

I think it's correct to consider iso the same as 65/75/whatever. Here's my argument. Functionally, all that matters from a keycap set designers perspective, is which group of people they are going to enable combatibility for and at what cost to the majority of other buyers. In that sense, iso is equivalent to other added options since it's a group of people you're adding compatibility for, at the cost of the other people who don't use those keys. It doesn't mater that the 20-50 iso users you're adding for are spread cross  60, 65, 75, etc. They still add up in total to less people than other options.

You're absolutely right that stepped/nonstepped caps lock should be treated as a different layout (when it comes to choosing base kits at least). The cost there is including 1 key, for all of the people who use stepped caps (a significant chunk, imo).

[lewisflude]

I completely understand from a set designer perspective how ISO users can be seen as just another group like 40s users, 1800 users. I don't think of it as being just another group, to me being able to use ISO is much more fundamental. It's about being inclusive of people outside of America who grew up using ISO (a large population of people).

I often see the argument that removing ISO brings down base price, with people going as far as to outwardly state it's because they "want to be able to afford two base kits". I think it's undeniable that people get excessively vocal about removing ISO when compared to other extra keys that either add compatibility for some esoteric layout or some novelties people want.

ANSI is an American layout, whereas ISO is used by much of the rest of the world. ISO users want to be able to use a keyboard that looks and feels like what they've grown up on. I wouldn't buy a kit that doesn't support ISO and I know I've skipped out on a few GBs because of this.

I do think that bringing base cost down is important so that GBs can make use of the economies of scale and get onto as many boards as possible. I'm interested in ways set designers could do this while being inclusive. I think bundling smaller sets together is one strategy that's worked really well in the past.

In any given set, I'm sure there's at least a handful of keys that someone isn't using. You can't use every single key in a set on a board. So this idea of the "ISO tax" of $2-3 per kit just doesn't really make sense to me. I understand the reasoning behind building sets that will generate the most sales and optimising those sets for maximum reach/profit. I also see the logic behind using kit sales as the primary metric behind the inclusion of ISO. It makes sense that a set designer would listen to the market and make changes that the majority want.

I think that the vocal support of ISO in this thread, and interest checks show that there's another metric set designers should take note of, which is how important ISO is to people who use it. Although it might seem like an aesthetic/functional preference like choosing HHKB layout, 40s or 1800 is really something cultural and fundamental to our experience using keyboard. If the majority want rid of ISO, that makes the world of mechanical keyboards more homogenous and America-centric and as a growing community I think inclusion should be at the forefront of discussions around what keys to support or not support.

[fleeceman]

Show Image

You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?

[fleeceman]

Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.


Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.

[Oblotzky]

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You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?

I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.

Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.

I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.

Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.


Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.

A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.

[[Lewynlight]]

Hello maybe this isn't the right section so move it if necessary.

People that knows me know I'm a big defender of ISO. Even Azerty FR ISO but well that's not what I want to discuss today.

I've been a lot less active on the hobby since I pretty much reached my endgame. But lately 2 IC threads have kind of startled me:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.0
and this:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0

Before I continue, this IC threads I'm pointing are just examples toward the point I'm trying to make. I don't blame any of the IC starters.

First one : Sanctuary:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.450
On the latest pages we can see an argument ongoing because some kits were dropped and especially the ISO one.
And I have to say it's infuriating to read things such as:
"ISO is a non standard layout and most of the world use ANSI"
"Those niche kits won't ever come back."

But I'll come back to it later.

Now one the second IC that interests me :

7V 75% Keyboard :
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0
Watching through all the pages there are 7 differents people asking for ISO support.

The arguments on why there should be no ISO support:
"Actually, iso pads overlap ansi, creating swiss cheese effect. Nobody likes swiss cheese pcb. Its (one of) the same reason wilba refuses to do ISO on most of his pcb's, if im not mistaken."
"As with the above, I've opted not to include ISO support because of how it messes with the footprints for ANSI and as selfish as it sounds, this a design that is tailored to my personal preferences and is optimised for that."

Ok moving on.


ISO is a much larger subject but for today let's assume only UK ISO for keycap compatibility.

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On the base kit you're seeing there are about 60 caps outside of the "standard 104 ANSI layout" to accomodate for weird layouts such as 75% & 1800.

Reminder of the keys for UK ISO compatibility :
- ISO Enter ( ALso used for JIS)
- 1.25 Shift ( which can be used for layouts outside of ISO)
- 1u R3 key
- 1u R4 Key

4 keys total. When other layout require so much more keys, ISO can't get his 4 keys. And let's not talk about the keys that are included and god's know what use they have but well.

And remember I'm not talking about this IC in particular so don't throw me this post : https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94105.msg2776810#msg2776810 to the face that's not what I'm talking about.

I can understand that including more keys add to the price of the GB and can make or lose a GB.
Also I want to add one more thing. The kits included :

• HHKB
• 75%
• 1800

can all get combined with an hypothetical ISO kit.

Moving on back onto the subject of Customs keyboard and ISO support.

On some GB there's Winkeyless and Winkey top part. Yet have 4 more holes in a pcb is too much ?

On the plates, having more cutouts  is bad ?Doesn't look pretty ? Remember it's gonna be underneath your keycaps.
Well we can even have separated plates.
 

Ok so to finish this way too long message already.

I'm not saying ISO should be in every GB.
I'm not saying ISO is standard and the most used layout.

But you have to understand that the hobby is too ANSI-Centric.
To the point that a lot of people migrates towards ANSI because they can't get compatible keys for their country layout. Hell if I wanted brand new Azerty FR caps, there's been 2 GB in total in the span of 6 years.

It's NOT ANSI VS ISO and I can't accept flawed arguments against ISO support.
Let's work together so everyone can have a keyboard they cherrish.

Let's try to keep the arguments civil pls.

Hello.
This is the only time that i will reply in this thread.

The reason that I am forced to drop ISO in sanc. Rebirth are that the factory didn"t have the mold for the key. So they basically can't make ISO.

That's all.

>inb4 Move to another factory

Find me a company that can make 5 sided dyesub that have good quality, is competent and quick to respond.

Ok, that's it.  ;D
Good day to you all.

[fleeceman]

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You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?

I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.

Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.

I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.

Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.


Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.

A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.

4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.

I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.

Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.

Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.

[azhdar]

On the other hand I'm not pretending ISO is a 50% of the enthusiasts, probably far from it actually.

But how far are they from the 75% users, 1800 users , ergo users  ?

[Oblotzky]

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You were moaning that Oblivion international kit would not hit MOQ but it has easily?

I said it was not unlikely that it wouldn't, but gave it a shot because it had a chance. Also I wasn't sure that I could offer it with MOQ 50, had it been MOQ 100 we'd still be far off.

Out of the 1574 Base Kits sold, only 65 people cared about proper legends (Base Kits offer physical ISO), that's 4.13%.

I wouldn't call it 'easily' when you need to sell 1500+ Base Kits to hit such a low MOQ. Oblivion will probably remain my only set that I will try serving with proper ISO/NorDeUK coverage, everything else will have physical ISO at most.

Still waiting for Zambumon or Puddsy to show up with a screenshot of the Jamon ISO UK kit only getting 30 orders as if that is proof that only 30 people in the world use ISO.


Sorry to break it to you but Jamon is just ugly af.

A set being pretty or not is irrelevant when you are analyzing percentages.

4.13% is just the percentage of people willing to pay almost twice the cost of the regular base kit for correct legends, for this particular run of Oblivion. It is impossible to analyse this data and make any sort of practical conclusions. Especially when it is from Massdrop which is almost universally hated by everyone in Europe.

I am going to join Oblivion and buy the international kit because I love the set and hate having incorrect legends, but I will have to pay 20% import tax + handling charge, bringing my total to $273 just go cover a 65% board. As you can imagine, not everyone loves the set enough or has enough disposable income to pay that much for a keycap set so will compromise by having incorrect legends with ISO enter. I bet if it was run on mykeyboard.eu or another EU proxy there might be even more interest in the international kit.

Massdrop data is useless for analysing demand in Europe, and if you and Zambumon can't see that then this is a pointless debate. By running the set on MD you are sacrificing EU exposure and sales for more US sales, which is fine, but don't then point at the lack of EU sales as evidence for dropping ISO.

Just out of interest, do you know how much including an additional 4 keys for full ISO UK support would push the base set price up? I can't imagine it is more than a few dollars at most.

Is buying from Massdrop and that handling charge when importing really that much of a deal breaker? I offered SA Arcane via MyKeyboard.eu, we sold 3 ISO-UK kits during the month long GB. (inb4 ArCaNe SuCkS).